Wayne Alexander Bowers was born on March 1, 1919 in Bilbao, Spain. His father traveled as a minister, so Bowers grew up in small towns throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In 1943, he earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Cornell University. He worked under Hans Bethe.
In 1944, he joined the Theoretical Division of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.
Bowers passed away on August 28, 2008.